Wire-android: Version 3.47.909 did a complete chat and groups data cleansing
Today I got version 3.47.909 via Google Play Store update on different Android devices. On all of them I can't see any chats not goups. Beside the address list this looks like a total total wipe out of all communication history data. This how it looks via GUI. I did not have the chance the chaeck whether the data is really gone ..
This appeard to different Android Version (updated list)
Huawei P20: 9.0
Samsung Tab 8: 7.0
Samsung Tab S3: 9.0
Xiaomi Mi Note 10: 9.0
Sony XZ premium (G8141): 9.0
I'm not amused.
RolandXa
All 36 comments
I had the same happening! But the data is kind a still there but the contact list is gone. When I search my contacts the app want to start a group chat between me and them and then I can also see some chat history.
Please revert whatever changes you made to restore the previous functionality. Android app is completely unusable.
penCsharpener
on 29 Apr 2020
Please try Settings -> Advanced -> Perform full synchronization
makingthematrix
on 29 Apr 2020
about "Please try Settings -> Advanced -> Perform full synchronization"
Yes this works on all my Android devices. With a 'but:' The conversition I did on a iOS or Windows device, since this update and now, the moment I did this 'Perfom full sync', is gone/not visible on my Android devices.
I fear this is a gap which can't be recovered, right?
I mean this is not a huge issue, but still, something which can be avoided with a stop of the current Play Store version and a rollout of a fixed version ASAP.
Anyway: Big thank you to you, makingthematrix, for the simple but helpful tip!
RolandXa
on 29 Apr 2020
I performed the sync as well and it helped a bit. But the damage is already done. Before the sync it seems that Wire Android considered every private conversation as a group. When I was search my contacts for those I wanted to chat with it started a group with them by itself.
Best example: I search for my wife, clicked her contact, started a group and because that wasn't what I wanted left the group. Now after the full sync I see our conversation again but I can't write her anymore because I'm out of the 'group'. In the meantime on Wire Desktop (Win10) everything seems to work fine and I can write her and there is no mention of person added to group or person left. But on Android I see those things.
penCsharpener
on 29 Apr 2020
besides after full sync all the conversations and messages were marked unread and are completely unordered. Before at least the most recent conversations showed first in the list.
penCsharpener
on 29 Apr 2020
Exactly the same issue as @penCsharpener stated above. When I opened the app all my contacts and group chats were gone and I was being invited to add all my contacts as if for the first time. When I did so, each person appeared twice; once as themselves and once as a "group" consisting of only me and them.
_This is what I saw when I opened the app:_
Thinking I'd done something stupid, I "left" all the groups, leaving behind just the individual icons for each person. But now --although I can see our previous conversations-- I can't send any messages as underneath each person it says "You Left" [as obviously treating individuals as groups --although still listing them as 'PEOPLE' and not 'GROUPS'].
_Situation now. All contacts greyed out and unable to message them as I've "left" the group Wire converted each individual conversation into:_
Incidentally, "Perform Full Syncronisation" brought back the 3 [actual!] groups that I'm a member of and which had completely vanished. But, in one of them all the previous conversation is gone and Wire is telling me I just joined the group.
What a complete mess. Was this update tested before being let out the door? Wire is completely knackered for me now on all my Android devices!
UPDATED: to add screengrabs
madranet
on 29 Apr 2020
Same thing here, my group chat was completely gone. After a full sync the group chat shows up again, but all the old messages in it are still gone. I can still send and receive new messages though.
shadow00
on 29 Apr 2020
Ironically I can share something with a contact I have 'left the group' from. But I still can't write. The keyboard doesn't show up. This really leaves me worried every time I see a Wire update...
penCsharpener
on 29 Apr 2020
@penCsharpener
Ironically I can share something with a contact I have 'left the group' from
Again, ditto.
Without thinking, I just shared a photo via Wire to a contact. Photo was sent fine but I still can't access the keyboard to actually type a message.
This really leaves me worried every time I see a Wire update...
Yes. I'm also wondering how to broach the _"You know how I got you all to sign up for Wire? Well, how would you feel about giving Telegram a go instead?"_ conversation, with various non-tecchy family members!
madranet
on 29 Apr 2020
This is to confirm that a full sync restored most of my chats including messages, though many but not all were marked as unread. Sadly one entire group including all messages is missing from the Android App. This group was then also deleted from the Linux desktop app.
Addendum: Mysteriously, after receiving a message through said group it got completely restored on both devices.
Takkat-Nebuk
on 29 Apr 2020
I did a second 'Perform full synchronisation' late last night and all my individual contact conversations have been restored to their former glory [as in I can now access the keyboard to respond]. Although I suspect Wire is still confused as to whether they are Contacts or Groups as, on each one, I got a _"You added \
Also, the actual group conversation which lost all of its messages is still empty, even after this second full synchronisation.
Non-tecchy family member on my contacts list also asked me yesterday [while the Wire update was busy messing things up] why she'd received messages telling her I'd added her to a group and then that I'd left it again.
madranet
on 30 Apr 2020
Same here. A second sync recovered some broken conversations 👍 but reset the order of conversations and marked everything unread again 👎 . That doesn't change that the latest update made a mess on many peoples devices. Most people are not tech-savvy. Neither would they search Github for clues. I wish the play store had a way of marking updates as faulty/buggy to warn other users.
penCsharpener
on 30 Apr 2020
...I wish the play store had a way of marking updates as faulty/buggy to warn other users.
It's also a bit concerning that [as of when I checked this morning] there's been no official response from Wire about this very damaging bug and neither has the 3,47,909 update been pulled from the Play Store. So, presumably, the amount of people affected by this is only going to increase as the update percolates across more devices.
madranet
on 30 Apr 2020
Apparently there was a commit/merge possibly related to this issue #2800, but I suspect it actually didn't fix the problem.
(Or maybe it's just something else entirely)
shadow00
on 30 Apr 2020
...I don't see how it can be connected to our changes, but the fix is easy: perform full sync.
If that's the 'official' response and does indeed cover this issue, then it's pretty complacent.
_"...don't see how it can be connected to our changes..."_ when it occurred directly after an upgrade.
And _"...the fix is easy: perform full sync..."_ when, as we've all been pointing out, a full sync only partially restores things to how they were.
madranet
on 30 Apr 2020
I also lost all the groups and conversations with the update. A 'Perform full sync' restored the groups, but not the conversation content. This is disappointing since I already have to work extra hard to convince other people to use Wire as a secure app rather than other unsecure alternatives.
lapofran
on 30 Apr 2020
This is a bit of a mess TBH - numerous people I had convinced to sign up were already tentative and really only sticking with it because of my continued recommendation, but whilst it's great that we can recover the groups/chats, in some ways the damage is already done - and the fact that after sync it reappears all jumbled up really doesn't help win any brownie points with my contacts 😢 I suspect I'm going to lose a few more people due to this issue.
alexleonard
on 1 May 2020
I'm in a similar position. After doing my research into the various options available, I spent a long time convincing all of my family circle and several friends to settle on Wire as a common secure communication platform we could all use across our various Macs, PCs, iPhones, Androids, etc.
Quite a few times since then, I've been left wondering if I did the right thing:
Wire's dev team seem incredibly reluctant to fix any of the long-standing usability issues [Notifications have been broken since forever. Ditto landscape support or even something as basic as being able to adjust font size. Nor has the supposed ability to restore from backup ever worked reliably for me].
But this is the first time that Wire has actually wiped out my existing data with no action on my part. I am starting to think this latest debacle may be the straw that broke the camel's back.
madranet
on 1 May 2020
I am having the same problem.
The fact of the matter is, they have to support their paying clients first. It's understandable/annoying but sometimes I wonder if they actually use their own app?
agates
on 1 May 2020
I had the same problem and additionally my messages cannot be decrypted on other devices!
I tried multiple times on different dvices to reset the session, no change.
I made a backup and tried to clear chache, data and multiple times to reinstall and restore the backup. I am at a point where I only see the people from the backup, but no old messages, a fullsync is not working. But I can atleast send messages to another device again that can be decrypted, I don't know if to all other devices, I had a report, wehre it was still not decrypted.
It was somewhen at the beginning, but then my messages could not be decrypted so I tried ti reinstall.
It even asked after a start that it is a new device again.
cocoon
on 2 May 2020
@cocoon I've had similar problems with restoring from backup in the recent past. But they pre-date this latest snafu with the 3,47,909 update. So I think they're a separate issue and not directly caused by this particular update.
madranet
on 2 May 2020
I also had this problem. For two of my contacts, I unintentionally created group chats by clicking on them in the contact list. Unfortunately, I left on of those groups. After performing a full sync I ended up with the same situation as @madranet: My chats were back and I could leave the obsolete group chat I was still in. But to the person, where I had left the group chat, I could no longer write messages. Fortunately, after logging out and in again on my Android device, I can again write messages to that person as well.
So, in summary, full sync and log out brought everything back to normal for me.
stibu81
on 2 May 2020
@madranet Yes thanks, I found not that the mentioned db migration sounds related: https://github.com/wireapp/wire-android/issues/2756
Something is broken, so it sounds like the only hope might be a future update that allows cross platform export / import or a fix for backup imports.
cocoon
on 3 May 2020
Hi,
We have just released a hotfix which should force-refresh conversation lists. If you already did the full sync there should be no change for you.
makingthematrix
on 4 May 2020
@makingthematrix
If you already did the full sync there should be no change for you.
Does that mean that if we already did a full sync we won't be able to recover group chats anymore?
I still have all the conversations on a second device (which I did not update), but on my main phone the group chat looks like I just joined in, no old messages show up (even after the hotfix update).
Is there no way to perhaps copy old data from another phone? Or is it just gone?
shadow00
on 4 May 2020
After update, some private conversations had an unread messages count notification for old messages read from a long time ago (2019), I guess this is related?
One or two other conversations got this notification appearing when going to read it, and disappeared once opened and back to conversation list. I also guess that's related?
Porkepix
on 4 May 2020
@shadow00 :
We are investigating different scenarios and trying to recover from this issue due to a big migration we are doing. Sorry for the inconvenience. Please send us your logs. That would help us to have more context and address the problem in a better way.
@Porkepix : Changes in notifications appearing are not related to this.
makingthematrix
on 4 May 2020
@Porkepix : Changes in notifications appearing are not related to this.
Because I might have not been clear (English isn't my native language), I wasn't talking about Android notifications, but the number appearing besides contacts/conversations showing the number of unread messages. It didn't do that previously, and as this issue seems to be about messed up history, it seemed to maybe have been related in some ways.
It also obviously can be completely unrelated.
Porkepix
on 4 May 2020
@Porkepix : The unread messages number will disappear after you scroll down to the newest message.
makingthematrix
on 4 May 2020
@Porkepix : The unread messages number will disappear after you scroll down to the newest message.
Yes, but my point was that it were very old messages obviously already read :) (Like six month old messages from 2019).
Porkepix
on 4 May 2020
@Porkepix : Sorry. It can be due to a number of things. Recently we make a lot of changes with each release.
makingthematrix
on 4 May 2020
Have same issue with contacts duplicated as groups, and one contact I can't type msgs to after I "left" group as an attempt to delete duplicate contact that was shown as a group, will try log out & in again fix later.
However anyone else also have a group icon labelled "default" with a sort of ghost Icon & only group member is yourself? Is it safe to delete or will I delete myself or something?
IronJunkie
on 5 May 2020
@IronJunkie : It looks like some recent changes brought back to the main conversation list conversations previously marked as removed. "default" means that we no longer have the name of the conversation or the user which should be displayed at this place. You can safely delete them.
makingthematrix
on 6 May 2020
@IronJunkie : It looks like some recent changes brought back to the main conversation list conversations previously marked as removed. "default" means that we no longer have the name of the conversation or the user which should be displayed at this place. You can safely delete them.
Does that mean deleted content… isn't really deleted…?
Porkepix
on 6 May 2020
@Porkepix : No, it doesn't mean that. For technical reasons some entries (but not all data) can't be deleted right away. I'd rather not go into details here :)
Ok, I guess we can close this topic now?
makingthematrix
on 6 May 2020
related: As of last month, Riot now uses e2ee as the default
maltfield
on 10 May 2020
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Most helpful comment
I'm in a similar position. After doing my research into the various options available, I spent a long time convincing all of my family circle and several friends to settle on Wire as a common secure communication platform we could all use across our various Macs, PCs, iPhones, Androids, etc.
Quite a few times since then, I've been left wondering if I did the right thing:
Wire's dev team seem incredibly reluctant to fix any of the long-standing usability issues [Notifications have been broken since forever. Ditto landscape support or even something as basic as being able to adjust font size. Nor has the supposed ability to restore from backup ever worked reliably for me].
But this is the first time that Wire has actually wiped out my existing data with no action on my part. I am starting to think this latest debacle may be the straw that broke the camel's back.